Senior Commercial Accountant in Chicago, Illinois at Cross Street Real Estate LLC

Reports to: Director of Property Accounting

Job Overview: The Senior Commercial Accountant is a key component of the accounting team and the property management team. The Senior Commercial Accountant manages the financial aspects of commercial property leases, including lease agreement analysis and abstraction, ensuring correct tenant ledgers, overseeing annual CAM reconciliations, and ensuring compliance with accounting standards. They work closely with property management to provide financial insights, creating ad-hoc reports, as necessary, and assist with budgeting and forecasting lease-related revenue and expenses to maintain transparency in each property's lease obligations.

Primary Responsibilities

· Lease Agreement Analysis: Reviewing and analyzing lease agreements and abstracts for financial accuracy and compliance

· Financial Transaction Management: Preparing correcting journal entries where needed, managing security deposits payable, and lease-related receivables

· Reconciliation: Reconciling lease-related accounts to ensure data accuracy and maintain financial records

· Compliance: Ensuring that financial activities comply with relevant accounting standards

· Budgeting and Forecasting: Assisting with the development of property budgets and financial projections for lease-related revenue and expenses

· Collaboration: Working closely with property managers, leasing teams, and other internal and external stakeholders to resolve discrepancies and provide financial insights, creating ad-hoc reports, as necessary

· Oversee Common Area Maintenance (CAM): Perform and oversee the annual reconciliation of CAM, tax, and insurance costs to ensure they are accurately billed to tenants according to their leases

· Support Audits: Assist with internal and external audits by providing documentation and schedules related to lease accounting

· Collaborate with Teams: Work with other departments, such as property management, legal, and operations, to resolve discrepancies and gather information

· Train and Manage: Manage contracted third-party employees in lease abstraction and the CAM reconciliation process in Yardi and provide training where needed

Requirements

· Ability to communicate effectively, both oral and written; ability to develop and sustain cooperative working relationships; team player

· Ability to allocate one’s time effectively, work under pressure, and meet tight deadlines; ability to handle multiple demands and competing priorities; ability to prioritize workload; ability to work at a detailed level; willingness to learn in a dynamic environment that includes new ideas and change

· Ability to interpret and explain financial reports and to research leasing accounting questions utilizing accounting software

· Ability to read and interpret lease and related documents for financial impact such as rental agreements and service contracts

Qualifications

· Preferred CPA, CFA, CMA, accounting degree, or equivalent experience

· Knowledge of GAAP as it pertains to the real estate industry, accounting controls, processes, and procedures

· Minimum 3-5 years of commercial real estate experience required

· Expert in CAM reconciliation process

· Minimum 3-5 years of experience of commercial lease document analysis and/or abstraction

· Full cycle budgeting/forecasting experience

· Intercompany and fixed asset accounting exposure

· Experience with acquisition and disposition entries

· Experience compiling ad-hoc analyses

· Intermediate Excel (pivot tables, SUMIFS, VLOOKUP, ROUND, MAXIFS, MINIFS, DATE, TEXT, VALUE, and COUNTIFS - INDEX and MATCH a plus)

· Yardi Voyager or other major real estate accounting software such as MRI, JDE, etc.